Day of reckoning comes for our sexual behavior

By what grace of God, fluke of nature or accident of timing, I do not know.

But I got away.

And that made me feel lucky. And stupid.

It was a poisonous cocktail and I would come to know it well.

I don’t know whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when he was 17 and she was 15. Nor do I know whether a drunken Kavanaugh exposed himself to fellow Yale University student Deborah Ramirez 35 years ago. The accusations are unsubstantiated; it is likely none of us will never know.

But here is what I do know: I know what it is like to stuff abuse so deep in the gullet that just a bit of stirring brings the whole lurid encounter back again. I know what it is like to fear humiliation more than to desire justice. I know that alcohol pollutes perverts and poisons. And I know that as a woman, neither intellect nor strength will inure you from a pervasive sense of vulnerability.

Nothing of the scale what Ramirez and Ford alleged ever happened to me. But something nearly did, and in light of the legitimate confusion about the allegations – why did these women wait so long to speak, why didn’t they report the incidents – my 19-year-old mentality might prove enlightening.

His name was Ed. He was a commuter student. He was older. He lived off campus. I was a college sophomore who had never been on a real date_ I met him outside the university gym, where he recognized the hometown on my sweatshirt and engaged me in conversation.

I found him unattractive but kind. I had never had a man express such curiosity about what I did, read or thought. He asked me out for hot chocolate. I told him I had class and he suggested another time. I left, hoping I’d never see him again.

But I did. Over and over again, he materialized outside the gym when I was finishing up my run. Wouldn’t I have cocoa? Or a soda? He cajoled, questioned, pestered and persisted. How about dinner? His place. He’d have me home by 10.

For months afterward, I wondered why I said yes. In the end, it was simply this: Pity. I felt sorry for him.

I felt sorry for him when he picked me up in his busted VW Rabbit with the bad radiator. I felt sorry that he had to keep stopping and filling the thing up with gallon after gallon of water. I felt sorry when I arrived at his apartment and had no idea where I was. I felt sorry when he stuck his tongue in my mouth and I said, “No.”

“Why not?” he said, and what I really wanted to say was “Why?” Instead I jabbered away like a jaybird and tried to compliment the dingy décor. Dinner was unprepared, giving him a chance to preheat the oven and try again. But on and on he lunged and groped, and I wondered how I could get out of there without hurting his feelings.

His feelings.

He poured me a Kahlúa and milk and pressed me to drink it. I sipped. His cupped his hand under the bottom of the glass and encouraged me to guzzle. “You finish it and I’ll show you my sauna,” he said.

“What sauna?” I said.

“Drink,” he said.

Appetite ruined, fear and irritation racing to outpace each other, I told him I needed to get home. “But you haven’t seen my sauna,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door, turned the shower on full blast, shut the door, grabbed me again and began slobbering all over me.

“I want to go home,” I said. He smiled. “Stay,” he inveigled.

“Now,” I said.

I am still not sure how I got back to the dorm that night, where I was or why he relented. At one point, his car a smoking ruin on a sidewalk, he hailed a cab, handed me the $8 in his wallet and sent me home.

I was terrified. I was furious. I was humiliated. I was disgusted. The evening had been my fault. I should not have been so friendly. Or accommodating. Or complaisant. What had I done to provoke him? How would I talk about this with anybody who would not upbraid me as the stupid fool I was?

The swarm of emotions that assaulted me – blame, humiliation, fear, revulsion – is common to anyone who survives an encounter more damaging than mine. Whatever your beliefs about the Kavanaugh accusations, we are at a point of cultural reckoning for sexual behavior.

I don’t know what happened at Georgetown Prep, but I do know this. We brainwash too many girls into thinking that a man’s attention and pleasure are more important than hers. The obliterating consumption of alcohol – half of college students “binge drink” – puts too many at risk for assault. And the idea that “all boys do that,” articulated by Florida congressional candidate Gina Sosa, (“Tell me, what boy hasn’t done this in high school,” she told CNN) are an affront and a slander to the millions of boys that don’t.

Millions of women have had encounters like mine that ended infinitely worse. The accusations about Brett Kavanaugh are either the worst smear in U.S. Supreme Court history, or they may reveal an ugly truth. We can choose to let this process cement our partisan divide. Or we can open our eyes to the shame that locks women into silence and raise our daughters to put their human dignity ahead of the pleasures of men.